If you want to kill something, dig it out by the roots. I had a friend like the one Ron Collins mentioned. He was an intelligent man, but he had led a hardscrabble life. He had pruned trees for a year to support his family. He had been a commercial fisherman. He had worked construction. He could dig and tend a garden to live off off. He could hunt for food.

His array of real life survival skills was endless. When I knew him in Tennessee. I helped him build a house out of discarded materials for himself and his wife.

His skills would have been common only 100 years ago. Now they have all but disappeared. These days, he’s not the kind of guy who would get much respect or make much money. But if the electricity ever went off for good, he’s exactly the kind of guy who would survive, while the fops, professors, coders, content providers, and financiers would starve and die.

Without people like him and his skills, a society is vulnerable at its roots. They have largely disappeared. America will choke on its need for luxury and its exaltation of weak parasites. Nothing thrives from the top down.